Autobot Menace!In a strange coincidence, I got taken out of action for a little over a week by a minor car accident. I'm nearly certain that I saw the Autobot insignia on the offending vehicle.
- Jabberwocky More >

Editor-In-Chief Chris Ryall has posted a preview page from the upcoming Beast Wars Sourcebooks in the IDW Publishing forums. The sample page features a spiffy piece of artwork of Bazooka, his Bio, Weapons/Abilities, Weaknesses, and a look at him in beast mode. The section of each page that highlighted the bot's favorite Gordon Lightfoot song had to be cut to make room for biographies. Stupid biographies.

According to a report on Bloomberg, Hasbro pulled in roughly $600 million in sales from Transformers and Spider-Man toys alone this year. The franchises accounted for 20 percent of the company's profits, helping the company exceed their earnings estimates by six cents a share.

With the wild success of these toy lines, it's only a matter of time before we get an Aunt May figure with dentures that transform into a friendly little wrinkled Autobot.

Motor Trend has published a small article spotlighting the modified Saleen S302 Mustang that was featured in Transformers as Barricade. According to the piece, this "S302 Extreme" has over 600 horsepower under the hood. Wow, that's at least twice as powerful as my Vespa! Check out the full article here, complete with photographs of the police car you really don't want to see in your rear-view mirror.

The first issue of Transformers Comic U.K. just went on sale a few days ago, but Simon Furman has already finished the script for issue #6 and updated his blog with the details.

This issue wraps up the first story ‘arc’, though as I’ve mentioned before each is a self-contained, single character-led entity. Here, the focus falls on Jazz, the last of those ‘lost in space’ after events in issue #2. I had two distinct things to accomplish here: one, present a story that draws out Jazz’s unique personality (like his G1 equivalent, he’s a culture vulture and wishes to experience as much universal diversity as possible), and two, bring the Autobots together again for a rousing, all guns blazing finale.

Hopefully this comic gets distributed to other countries because it sounds like it's shaping up to be a fun read. Check out the blog entry in its entirety.

While a Transformers sequel hasn't officially been announced, the amount of people involved in the original who have expressed interest in a second and even third movie make it a near certainty. Add another voice to the chorus:

"Transformers," which was based on the '80s toys and animated TV show, has grossed over $223 million in two weeks and seems destined for at least one sequel. Martin Levy, a marketing executive at Dreamworks (which co-produced the movie with Paramount), says: "It's a very logical thing to think that we can look forward to another one."

That comes to us from an AP report entitled "Hollywood Studios Go Sequel Crazy", which is poignant because sequels are a new trend.

USA Today is conducting a vote to see which Transformers character readers would most like to see in the movie's sequel. This follows Lorenzo di Bonaventura's recent statement that he is open fan input, so your vote might do some good. The provided choices are Devastator, Jetfire, Soundwave, The Insecticons, Grimlock, Ravage, Mirage, Shockwave, Ultra Magnus, and Hot Rod.

Thanks to Seibertron for being the first to run this story. Vote Grimlock, vote often.

Just as I was beginning to think that living in the UK was the best way to get free Transformers stuff, Madman announced a new contest that's only open to Australian residents. To enter all you have to do is explain which Transformer is your favorite and why. One lucky winner will get:

Here's another giveaway that's exclusive to our readers in the UK. In the July 20th edition of their paper, The Times will offer a free "Collector's Preview" Transformers DVD with exclusive film clips, interviews, and robot profiles. It's not known whether the DVD will come packaged in the paper itself or you'll receive a mail-in coupon, but hey, free stuff.

A seven page preview of New Avengers / Transformers issue 2 is available on IGN. Their previous preview consisted of several pages of art, but today's article features lots of dialogue and Wolverine getting run over. Really.

If you aren't familiar with Microsoft Points, they're sort of like Goofy Dollars at Disney, except they don't correspond to dollars on a 1:1 ratio and buying ice cream with them is significantly more difficult.

Transformers: The Game continues to climb the PC sales charts despite mediocre reviews and the fact that it's only available at Target stores. According to NPD Group's numbers it was the sixth best-selling PC title for the week of July 1st through July 7th, up two spots from the previous week.

This isn't officially Transformers news, but it's way cool nonetheless. Gizmodo has footage of a miniature car that actually stands up and transforms into a robot, walks around, then transforms back into a car.

The video was taken at some sort of Japanese robot competition, and it's not clear whether the bot is A.I. driven or remote-controlled. Either way, it's very impressive.

Transformers At The Moon got their hands on the Goo Goo Dolls' music video for Before It's Too Late. The tune was featured in the Transformers movie, so naturally the video is chock full of scenes from the film. Early rumors of a Frenzy drum solo were incorrect.

CVG has put together a contest to commemorate the launch of Transformers Comic UK. Head to the contest page and you can enter to win exclusive comic artwork signed by Geoff Senior and Simon Furman, a copy of Transformers: The Game for the Xbox 360, a year's subscription to the new comic, and two Transformers novels.

Note that CVG is based in England and the comic is specific to the UK, so although there are no official contest rules posted it's pretty much a given that this is only open to British readers.